Not Expected

[ExploitedSanity]

Happy holidays all.

When I started adventuring into SDR this year. I pretty much just jumped right in with the RTL-SDR v4. With that, I have learned a lot by moving down the list of things you can do with them on the RTL site. When I tried ads-b, I was receiving with one of those indoor mini discones. Which works awesome by the way. For Christmas yesterday my stepdaughter got me an RTL-SDR v3. She meant to get the v4. However, I plugged it in and the first thing i did after doing the standard FM station check was try ads-b. Without moving the mini discone from in front of the large window, I was recieving twice as many planes. I was blown away at how much better the v3 performed over the v4 with ads-b. So now I want one or two more.

 

[saioke]

Happy holidays all.

When I started adventuring into SDR this year. I pretty much just jumped right in with the RTL-SDR v4. With that, I have learned a lot by moving down the list of things you can do with them on the RTL site. When I tried ads-b, I was receiving with one of those indoor mini discones. Which works awesome by the way. For Christmas yesterday my stepdaughter got me an RTL-SDR v3. She meant to get the v4. However, I plugged it in and the first thing i did after doing the standard FM station check was try ads-b. Without moving the mini discone from in front of the large window, I was recieving twice as many planes. I was blown away at how much better the v3 performed over the v4 with ads-b. So now I want one or two more.

I've seen several people say that the V3 performance above 500mhz is far better than the V4 because of the added filtering designed for hf. I'd like to pick a V3 up myself just to see if I can receive a local P25 system better. I have 2 V4's and I don't really even use either one for hf after buying a Tecsun PL-330. The radio seems to pull in signals better than a V4 with the same antenna and the same location.

 

[ExploitedSanity]

I've seen several people say that the V3 performance above 500mhz is far better than the V4 because of the added filtering designed for hf. I'd like to pick a V3 up myself just to see if I can receive a local P25 system better. I have 2 V4's and I don't really even use either one for hf after buying a Tecsun PL-330. The radio seems to pull in signals better than a V4 with the same antenna and the same location.

I don't have any issues with P25 on the v4 that I know of. Running 2 via SDRTrunk and trunking recorder along side radios, the v4 was actually picking up more of the simulcast system than the radio. I have not tried using the v3 yet with P25. I'll wait till one more v3 gets in my hands.

 

[saioke]

I don't have any issues with P25 on the v4 that I know of. Running 2 via SDRTrunk and trunking recorder along side radios, the v4 was actually picking up more of the simulcast system than the radio. I have not tried using the v3 yet with P25. I'll wait till one more v3 gets in my hands.

Supposedly due to the filtering of the V4 there can be a 2-3DB Att gain loss around the frequency range of higher P25 frequencies, but that's just what I heard. That isn't much if you already have a good signal to a local site but for a site that you can't pull in 100%, 2-3DB would make a huge difference. In my case, the closest P25 site is about 8 miles away and I'm in a valley surrounded by higher terrain and trees, so even with a yagi I have issues occasionally with my V4. Would be nice if I could fix some of those issues with the V3.

 

[ExploitedSanity]

Makes sense. The newest doesn't necessarily mean the best in some cases.